Sunday, February 10, 2013

As Black Sabbath are nearing the completion of their new album, “13”, the band are revealing more details about the project, which signals a return to their roots.

Rolling Stone reports producer Rick Rubin sat the band down in his Los Angeles home before the recording sessions began, and played them their first album, 1970's brutally primitive “Black Sabbath”.

"I wanted to make an album that stood alongside their first four albums," says Rubin. "The first album wasn't a straightforward heavy metal record. You could hear the jazz influence, so that was the goal, and to capture that live interaction."

For the band, Rubin's challenge to live up to their early sound was initially disorienting. "It was confusing," says bassist Geezer Butler. "We had to unlearn everything we'd learned."

“13” finds Ozzy Osbourne, Tony Iommi, bassist Butler and guest drummer Brad Wilk (of Rage Against The Machine) resurrecting the sludgy, ultra-heavy sound of the early Sabbath records. In another nod to their roots, lumbering tracks like "End Of The Beginning" and "Age Of Reason" stretch out to as long as eight minutes.

"I don't know what's going on in the music world," says Ozzy, who describes the new album as ‘Satanic blues.’ "My wife mentions bands to me and I don't know what the fuck she's talking about. We just do what we always did."

The project is the group’s first studio album together since 1978’s “Never Say Die!”

In advance of the CD's June release, Sabbath will head to New Zealand, Australia and Japan for live performances starting in April.